Urquhart's 10-goal game sets pace for men's water polo's unbeaten weekend

Ten goals.

Not a bad tally for a weekend of water polo for a player.

Junior driver Rob Urquhart picked up 10 goals — then he hopped into the pool for the second game of the four that the men's water polo team (7-0) played this weekend.

Urquhart started the weekend by leading the Tigers to a 12-5 win at George Washington on the strength of an astounding 10-goal effort. The No. 14 Tigers then traveled to Bucknell and swept their Collegiate Water Polo Association weekend by beating Navy, Johns Hopkins and the host school.

"I asked Rob after the game if he had ever scored that many points in a high school game and he said 'No'," senior captain Marshall Roslyn said.

The George Washington game did not go as planned in the beginning, however, as the Colonials jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the first quarter against a much stronger Princeton team.

"They really shouldn't have been able to hang with us, but they took some of our smaller guys down to two meters and that caused some problems," Roslyn said.

Princeton rallied for the win, as Urquhart took the game over, scoring eight of the next nine goals. Sophomore two-meter Dan McKenna was the other Tiger to score, adding two of his own.

After the first game of the weekend Princeton boarded a bus and made the trip from Washington to Lewisburg, Pa.

The Tigers then had to face archrival Navy the next morning in a game that would pit two of the top teams in the East against each other.

Princeton came out with its best effort of the season and shut down the potent Navy offense en route to an 8-2 victory.

Both teams were able to hold the other's offenses down in the first half as the score was only 3-1 going into the break. The Tigers broke through early in the second half scoring four goals to put the game out of reach.

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"Overall, we played a really good game from top to bottom," Roslyn said. "Both teams really came in knowing it was a huge rivalry and to get the win was great."

Urquhart again led the offense with three goals, while fellow junior Chris Armato had two for the Tigers.

Roslyn, junior two-meter Kevin Foster and McKenna rounded out the scoring for Princeton.

After the win against Navy, which upped their record to 5-0 on the season, the Tigers came out flat in the evening against a small, quick Johns Hopkins team.

"From the warm-ups on, we just weren't focused and played really flat," Roslyn said.

Foster, however, shouldered the offensive load by scoring a team-high five goals — including the game winner with 28 seconds left — as Princeton held off the Blue Jays by a score of 10-9.

"Kevin just scored some huge goals for us in that game to give us the win," Roslyn said. "It shouldn't have been as close as it was, though. We really have to play better."

Urquhart had another hat trick for the Tigers, while McKenna continued his impressive weekend as Princeton's second option at the two-meter position with two goals of his own.

The Tigers finished their CWPA sweep of the weekend Sunday morning with a 9-5 victory over Bucknell.

Princeton jumped out to an early 4-1 lead before the Bison rallied to get within one goal heading into the fourth quarter. The Tigers then rallied for the final three goals of the game to close out a weekend sweep and remain perfect on the season.

Roslyn and Urquhart each tallied three goals in the win for Princeton.

The Tigers come back home for the North/South Invitational this weekend. They will play Harvard Friday night before battling Iona, Queens, Massachusetts and St. Francis over the weekend.